In Their Own Words – Getting From There to Here

My son, Justin, is a child with a medical and an educational diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome.

My wife and I have struggled to obtain educational services that would allow him to go onto higher learning and/or independent living to the fullest extent possible. An ongoing denial of a Free and Appropriate Public Education resulted in the public school paying for a private school placement for my son’s junior and senior years of high school.

We recently got my son’s high school transcript and his class ranking is #9 out of 424 seniors in the public high school that he is administratively enrolled in.

My son is a living reminder to parents of kids on the spectrum that you can get there from here.

This “In Their Own Words” is written by David B. Cockrell.

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Is there a book, article or anything else where I can read how they made his son’s education possible? We are going through the same situation with our son. The school has declined services for our son and we are considering taking the school and the school district to court. Any help or guidance on navigating the system or tips on how to get the school to pay for his education will be GREATLY appreciated.

Thank you for the encouragement and hope…my son is 8 yrs..he was diagnosed since he was 18 months. He is in 3rd grade general ed with some inclusion…we have ARD meetings anually to work on his IEP for the following year and review his progress to date. He is a happy, positive, little boy but recently his teacher has been complaining about him getting to emotional and “refuses” to do his work. She says he is “rude” and has an “attitude”. She went as far as telling me if he continued to lack certain skills he was not going to get far in life. Now, I am the type of parent that raises hell but i opted to keep my cool and consider all my options. I have spoken to his special ed teacher that goes in his classroom for inclusion and even she was disappointed with his general ed teachers comments. The weird thing is my son have good grades. I mean last year they were all A’s. This year they are B’s but i am sure that has to do with the fact that he is haveing diffuculty in class. I think the underlying problem is his teacher and her lack of acknowledgement or her ignorance towards autism. I even thought of taking him out of school and teaching him myself since i find that i do that anyway. Any suggestions?

Thanks for your story. My 9 year old has high functioning autism and we are in the middle of a lawsuit with our school district. This is his second year in a private school. It is amazing the difference that an appropriate placement makes. Although at this moment it is painful to admit( due to financial and emotional burdens) it is worth every dime and every tear. God bless your son and all our children….